Thinkpads Forum

So I recently purchased a pair of high-end IEMs (In Ear Monitors) to replace all the cheap headphones that I've been using. With these new headphones, the quality of music is amazing. HOWEVER, I've also noticed that it produces static when I have it plugged into my laptop jack. This is annoying as it is evident and quite pronounced when I listen to my music, especially ones with soft instrumentals. This problem isn't present when I listen to the same track on my Zune.

Is there something wrong with the jack on my laptop? OR is it a driver problem? (i've tried googling it...and the only thing i've found remotely close to an answer is something about the intel matrix driver causing the audio problem, but the guy had an x200 http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo- ... oblem.html running vista 64 whereas in my case, I have a T500 and running windows 7 x64)


Listen to this carefully for the first 10sec....during the piano acoustic part. I hear a lot of static.

http://www.youtube.com/v/GHjbtosmxi0?fs=1&hl=en_US

And the first 15 seconds of this as well..

http://www.youtube.com/v/1b_vKyjtMb0?fs=1&hl=en_US

first 10sec here with the xylophones....

http://www.youtube.com/v/E9R1AKD7GnA?fs=1&hl=en_US

Admin note: Added PIC warning in subject line

Hey there. I listened to your audio clips last night on both my T400 and X200, using a set of Bose 'on the ear' headphones I've had for a couple of years. I couldn't hear any static over either system, although I did get a little with the X200 when I adjusted the volume settings within Youtube(and not on the machine). Other than that things sounded excellent.

I'd point toward driver errors before looking at the headphone/mic jacks, but try rotating the plug within the jack; I'd get some noise from the jack on my old X61 that way.

What kind of monitors are you using?

I had a problem like this with an XP machine years ago. Unfortunately I never figured out what it was, but it was cured by a re-install of XP. Must have been some driver or perhaps copy protection of a game that permanently installed itself. Audio, under XP at least, requires the CPU to service a hardware interrupt every 10ms. If it misses some of those interrupts, because some other driver takes precedence, you get static. My PC made everything sound like an old vinyl record. The way I debugged it was to get one of those Linux distros (a version of Ubuntu, I think) that installs itself completely on a runnable CD. I then played the same .wav file under Linux, which was clean, so I knew it wasn't the hardware.

And now that I'm thinking a bit more clearly, try the DPC latency checker found here: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Run that for a few moments.If I remember correctly sometimes certain drivers(my old M1730 was notorious for its wifi drivers causing this problem) will cause skipping or static during music playback, especially if you're streaming it.

Great idea FragrantHead...I'll try a linux distro to see if I can isolate the problem. As for the driver issue....I've already tried uninstalling it, using conexant driver, using default win 7 driver, and I still get the same subtle static in the background. I never noticed it until now because I've been using Skullcandy headphones (bass heavy) which covers up most of the static pretty well...though horrible in terms of audiophile sound quality .

I have tried different headphones...all produce the same static: Altec Lansing Backbeat, Skullcandy Ink'd, meelectronics m6 IEMs, steelseries siberia...

EDIT: OK...I tried your latency checker. Doesn't seem to show any problems:

That latency checker looks like a great find as well.

Come to think of it, my XP machine also has a slightly different, if possibly related, problem with the DVD Burner. It's a PATA device attached to a JMicron chipset on the motherboard. JMicron chips in general seem to be cheap, ubiquitous and ... nasty (my non-scientific impression). Every so often when the machine boots there will be a massive interrupt every other second, causing the mouse and audio to momentarily freeze up. Disabling the DVD drive in Device Manager or a reboot fixes it when that happens. The latest JMicron driver reduces the problem to a rare occurrence, but it's not gone.

I don't get any audio "lag" or "skipping" if that's what you guys are wondering...I'm getting this constant subtle static in the background.

Dunno if this will do anything, but have you considered wiping off the connectors with some rubbing alcohol?

Your latency numbers are far, far better than mine(I'm getting some serious spikes in the red, probably due to my wifi card), so you're fine on that end.

I'm also remembering that if you're running the stock Windows installation, Lenovo has a SmartAudio app that does a lot of audio-type things(equalizer, ear protection if you're wearing headphones, etc). You might try messing around with those settings; it's found in the Control Panel. However, I've got everything set to the whole 'factory' spec on both my systems.

LegendaryKA8 wrote:Your latency numbers are far, far better than mine(I'm getting some serious spikes in the red, probably due to my wifi card), so you're fine on that end.

That's weird, I get a spike every ten seconds but never into the red. It used to do that with really old drivers from about a year ago, but has since stopped. Also interesting is that on a freshly drivered install, there is no spike. That said, any file transfers through wifi will cause the latencies to go up.

As for the static problem, try installing Intel's Rapid Storage driver over the Matrix Storage drivers. This will break Turbo Memory, if you have it.

UPDATE: So I've finally had some time to deal with this problem again. I booted up Linux (Ubuntu) from a disc to see if I could isolate the problem (Operating System)....well I still have the static. I guess that means it is a hardware problem after all? =\... Hmm...if that's the case I'll probably wait until next summer break to use me AMEX additional 1 year warranty to send in the laptop for a fix hopefully.

Does the audio static occur both on battery and AC power?

Harryc wrote:Does the audio static occur both on battery and AC power?

Yes...it occurs on both

As weird as this might sound, do you get the static/hiss even when the machine is off? I have a handful of devices connected to a passive mixer before going to my desktop speakers. None of my other devices do it, but as soon as I plug in my T400, and also get weird electric noises when I move my desktop computer's mouse. It seems to me the T400 is picking up RFI and dumping it into the sound output.

I "fixed" a similar problem on my X200 by using an external USB soundcard.

My guess would be you're hearing digital noise that gets picked up by the analog output from other circuits on the main logic board of the notebook. I'd test this by listening to a silent track (create in Audacity) looped in your player while running some hardware tests and benchmarks. If the static changes depending on how the computer is being used by the tests, that would indicate insufficient isolation between the analog and digital lines.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this is part of what you're hearing. I doubt there are any notebooks that are designed for more than "good enough" sound from the headphone jack. If you want to be really critical, you'd probably need to get an Expresscard or dock with a digital output and run that to a dedicated headphone amplifier. (Edit: or USB, like Yak said... but I haven't myself had the best luck with USB for audio, probably because I tend to have too many USB devices hooked up... external HDD, webcam, Wacom tablet, Shuttle controller for a/v editing, MIDI interface, etc. Eventually I get a dropout.)

(I can hear -- or at least somehow perceive -- all sorts of digital noise no one else seems to. My old Palm T|X PDA emits a tiny whine that intensifies when I have my finger on the touchscreen. I seem to be the only one who can hear our electric blanket pulsing. The transformer for the furnace seems to fill the basement with a 60Hz hum. Well, that one's not digital.)

Speaking of your audio player, you do have any "enhancements" turned off, right? Some will overreact to quiet passages and do weird things. But if you're playing user-generated from YouTube, I wouldn't expect any audio quality after they're done recompressing things. (I notice one of your links has finally been pulled for copyright violation. Not surprising when you reply to a half-year-old thread...)

davidhbrown wrote:My guess would be you're hearing digital noise that gets picked up by the analog output from other circuits on the main logic board of the notebook.

If you want to be really critical, you'd probably need to get an Expresscard or dock with a digital output and run that to a dedicated headphone amplifier.

That's my suspicion as well. That's why I suggested an external USB soundcard which, by being external, would not pick up digital noise from the laptop. Sound quality might actually be better than the "good enough" sound coming from a business laptop. These things are only slightly larger than standard flash drives and fully plug&play.